


It's hard to see in the dark

by sareyen



Series: Light Switch [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Charles Xavier Needs a Hug, Erik Lehnsherr Loves Charles Xavier, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mutant and proud doesn't apply to telepaths apparently, Poor Charles Xavier, Post-X-Men: First Class (2011), Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sareyen/pseuds/sareyen
Summary: The aftermath of 'Turn off the light':When people say that you see the light when you meet death, they should really say that when you die you take the light with you. Because Charles was dead, and suddenly everything was dark, and yet some things were made clear. In the darkness, the people left behind realise what it really means when they say to not take anything for granted. They realise their mistakes, their biases, the hurt that they unwittingly conjured - and what really hurts is that they only realised once it was too late. The light had already been turned off and taken away, and there was no power in the world that could turn it on again.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr & Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Raven | Mystique & Charles Xavier
Series: Light Switch [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916494
Comments: 57
Kudos: 145





	It's hard to see in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Writing more for this story real quick because I apparently have a masochistic streak and like to feel the hurt.
> 
> I'd just like to say thank you to all of the lovely people who read and commented on the first part - it really means a lot, and I'm sorry for making you all hurt and I hope you're ready to do it all again lol
> 
> And note, I don't speak a lick of German, so if those German words I snagged off my good friend Google are completely bogus - oops.

Sometimes, Erik wished there were words in the English language that could wholly capture a concept, a feeling, a state of being. In German, there were some words that did that, some of which he had never grasped the value of until he met someone that was all of them and more.

 _Ohrwurm_ ; for a melody that won’t leave your mind, though for Erik, that melody did not come in the form of songs on records lazily spinning around in the lounge, nor the tinkle of piano keys from the drawing room at Westchester. No, for Erik, _Ohrwurm_ was a laugh, a voice, a curl of British consonants and soft vowels. A voice that rang in the recesses of Erik’s mind, a song that made his breath hasten and his heart squeeze.

 _Gem_ _ütlichkeit;_ a word that captured the overall feeling of warmth, friendliness, cheer, and many, many other things. Peace of mind, cosiness, a sense of belonging. There were lots of English words, but not even all of them together could really describe _Gem_ _ütlichkeit._ So, it was funny how _Gem_ _ütlichkeit_ suddenly sounded a lot like _Charles_ , because when Erik sat in the glow of the fire, the soft upholstery of luxurious furniture under his fingers and with Charles peering up at him through the swirl of a glass of scotch with a smile on his red lips, there was only warmth and friendliness and cheer and peace and belonging and more, more, _more_.

And _Weltschmerz_ ; a word that Erik only understood because it was something that made Charles sigh every now and then. Though there wasn’t a word in English that was quite the same, ‘world weariness’ was somewhat close, and no one felt the pain of the world more than Charles, because no one believed in it more. Erik always felt something stir up inside of him, a messy concoction of feelings unfamiliar to the man who professed to be without a human heart, when Charles would see anti-mutant propaganda in the papers or on the television. His stomach would flip when Charles’s blue eyes would harden, the shorter man striding towards the underground chamber and to Cerebro to find others like them so they could, maybe, understand what _Gemütlichkeit_ meant too.

Or _Geborgenheit_ , which was similar to _Gemütlichkeit._ This was something that enveloped Erik every day, in everything Charles did. With Erik’s youth, there were very few instances where he felt what made up _Geborgenheit_ ; comfort, security, _love_. But he felt it every morning when he would wake to Charles’s fingers softly carding through his auburn locks and the light chuckle that left his lips before he murmured “Ah, sorry, my friend – did I wake you?”. Erik would grumble, lithe arms wrapping around his lover’s waist to bury his face in the slope of the man’s neck, feeling warm and safe and cherished.

Maybe he should have realised something, recognised that something wasn’t quite right about the fact that Charles always went to bed after him and yet rose from slumber before Erik could shake off his dreams. He pushed the apprehension aside, though, because Erik was no stranger to insomnia or the elusive nature of sleep. Sometimes, when Erik struggled to sleep himself and woke in the night, his senses would pick up on the warmth pressing against the slopes of the metal desk lamp and the rhythmic movements of Charles’s familiar watch; reading, as always.

Those nights, Erik would give Charles’s watch a sleepy tug, the man jumping slightly. Charles would turn his head, handsome features half-illuminated by the lamplight, and give Erik an almost sheepish smile, like he had been caught.

He had been caught, but Erik hadn’t known that yet. He hadn’t known _what_ he had caught.

“I’m sorry, I got lost in the book,” Charles would murmur, closing his tome with a light thump and padding over to the bed, crawling under the covers and pressing himself against Erik’s skin, nose nuzzling the German’s chest. “Go back to sleep, Erik.”

Last night was similar to one of those nights, and Erik thought nothing of it. Charles was wearing his silk pyjamas, the ones that felt nice when pressed up against Erik’s skin, and from the slightly rigid set of his limbs Erik knew he wasn’t ready to sleep just yet. There was a hum beneath his skin, one that was vastly different to the relaxed, lethargic haze washing over Erik. Charles probably had a book he was invested in, that he couldn’t put down. That was also like Charles, really; stubborn, unrelenting in his beliefs. Determined.

If there was something he wanted to see through, he would not stop until the end.

So, when Charles pressed his lips against Erik’s, the metallokinetic didn’t dwell on it too much, even if it felt a little different. Instead of a _goodnight_ it felt more like a _goodbye_ , but then Charles smiled, brushed his fingers across Erik’s forehead to push some wayward strands from the wrinkles beginning to form there, and Erik just thought of _Geborgenheit_ and _Gemütlichkeit_ and nothing else.

There was another feeling simmering there, though, and it made Erik toss and turn in his sleep. It was early in the morning that Erik fully stepped out from the unsteady grips of unconsciousness, that feeling settled uncomfortably in the base of his stomach.

Blinking heavily, Erik’s eyes did not have to adjust to the morning light, the heavy curtains blotting out any semblance of the warm rays. Odd, because usually when Erik awoke, the curtains were open a slither, enough to draw lines of gold over Charles’s freckles as he woke Erik up with gentle fingers in his hair.

Erik frowned, turning to Charles’s side of the bed and finding it empty, the sheets crinkled but not slept in. The edges of the plush bedding were still tucked into Charles’s corner, only slightly dishevelled from the heaving of Erik’s body as he turned onto his side, hand splayed over the cold sheets.

There was an English word for the feeling Erik had now, Erik knew. _Foreboding_. That sense of unease the stemmed from nothing concrete, nothing tangible. Just an added sense of _there’s something wrong_ and _something is about to happen_ , and that something was never a good thing.

Erik was pulling himself up when a gut-wrenching scream tore itself through the halls of Westchester. The estate was large, and the scream was a torrent; glass windows rattled, beams creaked, and Sean’s mutant cry snapped Erik completely awake.

It did not take long for Erik to throw the covers off himself and pull on a grey jumper, rushing out the door and down the hall to the source of the noise.

 _‘Charles? What happened?’_ Erik projected in his mind, finding it more convenient to call out for the man who was likely already rushing towards Sean with the goal of soothing the sheer panic found in the boy’s voice.

Erik’s mental question was met with still silence, and Erik felt that feeling again. _Foreboding._

Erik didn’t know why, but he began walking faster and faster down the halls, and things only seemed to become quieter and quieter. Erik thrust out his powers, raking over the metal inside the mansion; he felt the aged planes of old candelabras and slightly rusted faucets. He felt Hank’s wire-frame glasses warming as they slipped over fur, and he felt the shaking of the frostbitten zippers of Sean’s flight uniform.

Latching onto the location of that metal, Erik’s footsteps thumped on wood as he walked downstairs, drawing closer to Sean. When he walked out the back door of Westchester towards the gardens, his teeth bit together as he was slapped with a gust of frosty morning air, the dew on the grass iced over and winter wind biting.

The first thing he saw as he walked along the grey and naked rose bushes, pruned for the winter and devoid of their usual vibrant redness – redness like Charles’s lips, Erik’s mind supplied with a tinge of wry acceptance – was Sean folded over and dry-retching into the bushes. The boy shook like the leaves that blew across the stone pathways meandering across the ground.

When Erik neared, he could hear Sean’s wretched gagging punctuated with heaving sobs, and saw that the boy had tears dribbling down his face which was as white as a sheet.

Erik hadn’t had the foresight to wear shoes, and his toes blistered in the cold but he kept walking on. Sean must have felt him approach, because when Erik neared, the boy looked at him with unabashed despair written over his face.

For a boy whose power was in his voice, Erik couldn’t make out the words pouring out of his mouth, because they sounded a lot like “Oh God, Erik, he’s dead. He’s dead. The Professor… He… Oh _God_ , he’s dead”.

From behind him, Erik could feel the others catching up. Raven flanked Hank’s hulking form, Alex, Darwin and Angel following behind them, but Erik paid no heed to them, clamping his hands down on Sean’s shoulders and shaking the boy. His fingers dug into Sean’s shoulders firmly, because he needed to _understand_ , because Sean was speaking nonsense and he couldn’t be speaking English because what he said just didn’t make any _sense_.

“What happened?” Erik asked, voice rough after having just woken up and tight from the cold. Sean struggled to breathe, mouth moving again in words that made no sense. Raven gasped behind him, and Erik caught something about _“Behind the bushes… God… His body… Blood… So much blood… His head… His legs… He… Dead”._

Dead.

Erik shoved past Sean, bare feet sliding across the frosted stone path and around the bushes, before his body froze.

Erik has witnessed death before. He had been in the room when his mother died, he had killed men before, he had seen Shaw’s body slump to the ground as a crimson coin hovered in the air. Erik remembered the sound his mother’s body made, a strangely hollow _thump_ that was no different than someone dropping a sack of potatoes onto wooden floorboards. And he remembered what his mother looked like, lying there on the ground with blood pooling from the bullet in her brain. She had looked peaceful, face slack and eyes closed, and if it weren’t for the oozing circle on her temple she would have passed as someone in a deep slumber.

This was not like that. Because the sound that this body looked like it made when it hit the ground wasn’t a hollow thump but a deafening _crunch_ , and the body looked like a corpse and not someone wandering the lands of dreams.

Erik’s heart stopped beating for what felt like an eternity as he stared, and once again he couldn’t understand. Because that body looked like _Charles_ , but it couldn’t be Charles because Charles wouldn’t be lying on the ground in those silk pyjamas that felt nice on Erik’s bare skin, silk pyjamas that looked crisp with ice that clung in beads to the fabric.

But that _was_ Charles, his brown hair gently blowing in the wind and covered in dew like the grass.

 _Charles_ , eyes closed and mouth slightly parted, lips blue and grey and mimicking the clipped rose bushes that weren’t flush with red any more.

 _Charles_ , still and prone, legs bent in ways they shouldn’t and a halo of red frozen around him.

Sean’s words made sense now, and yet they didn’t, because Charles couldn’t be dead. Not _Charles_.

Erik thinks he made a sound, because his throat started to burn and his lungs sear in the biting frost. His weight fell to his knees, and then onto his palms, which chafed against the stone. Erik didn’t register what his body was doing, because he was reaching for Charles with frantic hands, fingers pressing against Charles’s upturned back, his neck, his face, his head. His hair felt sticky, and his skull dipped in places it shouldn’t, and Erik made another sound that rocked through his entire body.

“Charles, Charles, what are you doing out here?” Erik pushed, hands shaking as he rolled Charles onto his back, the man pliant. His skin was ice cold, and red had turned to brown and black where it had stilled and pooled under his skin. Erik could feel the congregation of iron that didn’t move in a lump under Charles’s flesh and whimpered.

“No,” Raven said from behind him, voice near-silent.

“Charles,” Erik said again, tugging at the man’s shoulders, hauling him onto his lap. Charles’s head lolled back, and Erik’s throat let out a choked noise as he cradled the telepath’s head in the curve of his elbow, other hand brushing across his cheek, across the bridge of his nose, carding through his hair like Charles always did to him to wake him up in the morning. And yet, Charles’s eyes didn’t open to reveal that familiar blue, just as the sky that hung above him was grey and obscured by clouds.

“Charles?” Erik whispered, leaning in close, like he expected Charles’s parted lips to puff out a breath of warm air, but they didn’t. Erik rocked Charles back and forth in his arms, hunching over as he felt his eyes sting. Erik’s forehead dropped down against Charles’s own as he cradled the man’s face.

 _‘Charles… Charles… Liebling, you can hear me, can’t you?’_ Erik pushed in his mind, his words a firm press. When they were met with silence, Erik’s mental voice rose and swirled, panic overriding the control he had built over the years, his soul unravelling.

_‘Charles! Charles, read my mind, listen to me. Please. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, don’t do this to me. Charles!’_

Maybe Erik had been screaming the words out loud too, because he felt a trembling hand grip his shoulder.

“Erik… Erik, the Professor, he’s…” Hank said, voice clogged like he had a throat full of fur as well.

_Dead._

For all Erik knew, a telepath could have shoved the word into everyone’s mind, because that’s the word that everyone thought as Hank’s voice drifted off.

“No,” Erik forced out, shaking his head. “No, don’t tell me that Charles is…” _Dead_. “He can’t… He wouldn’t just…”

 _Leave_.

 _‘You’re not alone, Erik. You’re not alone,’_ Charles had said into Erik’s mind that first night. Even as they rolled amongst the vast and endless waves of the pitch-black ocean, Erik had not felt adrift, because Charles anchored him and kept him afloat.

But now…

Yes, there was a German word for now.

 _Mutterseelenallein_ ; the English word ‘alone’ was not the same as _Mutterseelenallein._ Because _Mutterseelenallein_ was more than just the feeling of being alone – it was alone and it was more, it was a world with you surrounded by nothing.

It was the feeling of being without Charles, because without him, Erik was beyond alone.

***

The mansion was in shambles; furniture toppled over, papers scattered across the ground, metal torn from walls and twisted into grotesque shapes that mirrored the turmoil inside Erik’s soul. The mansion was a mess, but it was better that Erik unleash his anguish on objects without souls than the others, though Alex had copped a fist to the face when he had tried to help Hank pry Erik off Charles’s… body.

The thought made Erik’s eyes burn again, and his nails dug into the skin of his palm as he clenched his fists together. Metal groaned in pain around him, crying out in a way that Erik couldn’t bring himself to.

Charles’s mangled body was lying in Hank’s lab on a slab of metal, the only metal in the mansion that had yet to be twisted into obscure lumps. Every time Erik ran his powers across the metal slab, he couldn’t pick up on the way body heat usually seeped into it. He couldn’t feel the metal grow warm, like the way the inside surface of Charles’s watch was warm against the pulse at his wrist. No, the table was cold, as cold as the body lying atop it.

Hank, Alex and Darwin had forced everyone out of the lab while the furred man examined Charles. They said _examined_ , now, because the first time Hank had said _autopsy_ , he had almost been impaled by the spindles of a coatrack.

Sean had been too nauseous to go into the lab, and Erik too volatile. Angel was soothing Raven, who was in some sort of catatonic state. While Erik raged, Raven had shut down. She had fainted, first, the moment Hank and Alex managed to wrench Erik away from Charles’s body and allowing her to see it unobscured for the first time, and she had made the same sound Erik’s Mama had when she dropped to the ground.

Now, hours later, she had awoken, but moved around like she was still half in dream. She hoped she was. She hoped, desperately, that this was just a nightmare, a bad dream. She hoped that she would wake up in her bed, soaked in sweat and tears in her eyes, and run into Charles’s room like she had when they were children and jump into his bed. Like back then, she would crawl under his blankets and press herself to his side like a cat, Charles murmuring _“There, there. It’s alright now. It was only a bad dream”._

But this wasn’t a dream, so Raven couldn’t wake up, and Charles wouldn’t be waiting for her in his bed and silk pyjamas and be there to pat her head and tell her that everything was going to be alright. He couldn’t, because he was lying on a metal slab as Hank cut him open and pushed and prodded at his organs to figure out how he died, even though everyone knew the how. Hank, in his own way, was in denial and had to seek out the truth through science.

When Hank entered the room, Raven immediately jumped up, rushing to him.

“Hank?” she asked, voice raw, and the man swallowed thickly. His eyes were red behind his glasses, and the fur beneath them was pressed flat and damp.

Hank seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment, trying to walk through the jumble of his emotions that obscured the facts. When emotions failed, Hank fell back onto the clinical; fractured skull, lumbar vertebrae, legs, arms, ribs. Those shattered ribs splintered into his lungs and his heart. Liver, kidney and spleen lacerations.

“But… It was the head injury that… you know,” Hank said, as if his words should be a relief. “It… It was fast. He… wouldn’t have felt pain, not like if he had survived long enough for multiple organ failure or a pneumothorax or-”

“But _how_ , Hank?” Angel asked, glancing at Raven, who had collapsed back onto the couch beside her. Angel wrapped her arm around Raven’s shaking shoulders, rubbing her hand up and down the girl’s bicep as she began to sob, showing more movement than she had for the past four hours. “Did… Was it an attack? Another mutant? Someone… Someone who worked with Shaw, who could sneak in and…”

Hank shook his head.

“No. The autop- _examination_ revealed that there was no foul play. That the Professor…”

“No,” Erik said flatly, anger and despair simmering on his tongue. “Charles wouldn’t… Why would he… There’s no reason for him to…”

Everyone looked at each other, hearts shattered like Charles’s bones, as they all asked themselves –

_Why?_

***

They held the funeral exactly one week later, in the backyard under the cover of rain. Raven had spent a day in Charles’s room going through his large wardrobe, pushing through the hangers of geriatric cardigans, pressed slacks and knitwear, trying to hold back her tears so they didn’t soil her brother’s clothes.

Oh, how she had teased him for his wardrobe before, threatening to burn each and every one of his tweed coats with fraying elbow patches and those silly fingerless knit gloves. Now, though, she waded through them carefully, scaled skin brushing across soft cashmere that still had the cling of Charles’s smell on them – like fabric softener mixed with old books and sunlight, and maybe a little bit like tea.

Raven pulled out one of Charles’s dapper suits, the one he wore to the ceremony after he got his first PhD. Raven remembered that day. Charles, beaming that smile of his that could light up any room, hair swept back and yet still flopping over his eyes whenever he doubled over in an all-encompassing laugh. His cheeks had been flushed by elation and drink, and he had been beautiful.

When they had dressed his body on that metal slab in the lab, pulling cold and compliant arms through ironed arm holes and rolling his body to pull on the black dress trousers, Raven had to excuse herself from the room because it was too much. Because that was her brother lying there, dressed like how she remembered him, but the makeup Angel had painted on his face was only a mask that made him look like a ghost pretending to be alive.

As Darwin read through his eulogy, saying something eloquent and collectedly impassioned, Raven’s mind drifted off. For the past week, she had wondered _why_ , over and over, the single question unrelenting.

She and Erik had scoured the mansion for a letter, for an explanation, for _something_ , but Charles had left none. They pawed through the margins of his books, the papers on his desk, _everything_ , and yet they found nothing. Charles, who always had to have the last word, hadn’t left a single thing behind.

Nothing was amiss or out of place, and it was a constant sore reminder of the man that was now being lowered beneath the Westchester lawn beside a small metal monument. The monument featured Charles’s face sculpted in a wreath in the centre, lines and slopes formed by Erik’s hands and Erik’s powers, the depiction of Charles’s face startlingly accurate. Erik’s fingers had recreated the exaggerated curve of his nose, his full cheeks, his bow lips. Lips that Raven was sure Erik had memorised the feel of.

Erik, who had been so close to him, but had been just as shell-shocked – if not more – than anyone else standing in the rain around a headstone made of metal.

As Raven watched her brother’s body sinking lower and lower, Erik’s hands shaking as he used his powers to grip onto the metal handles of the casket to gentle place his lover to rest, Raven just kept staring at her brother’s sculpted face and asked –

_Why?_

***

Weeks passed, and then months, but by then Erik had stopped counting. His days bled into each other, his life now categorised into a painful stretch of time labelled ‘before Charles’ and the numb agony of ‘after Charles’.

Erik did find a word for ‘after Charles’, though.

 _Sehnsucht._ The English words ‘yearning’ and ‘longing’ could not hold a candle to _Sehnsucht_. Erik’s thoughts were consumed by Charles, even more than when the man was alive.

When people say that you see the light when you meet death, they should really say that when you die you take the light with you. Because Charles was dead, and suddenly everything was dark, and yet some things were made clear. In the darkness, the people left behind realise what it really means when they say to not take anything for granted.

Erik had realised that all too late. He had tried for so long to not _feel_ for any one, to not grow any attachments because he learnt, long ago, that when you care for someone you gave them some kind of power over you. By loving someone they could hurt you when they were taken away.

But Charles. God, _Charles_. Charles, who was so alive and vibrant and just a beacon of everything that was bright had seemed impervious to everything. He seemed infallible, and that had infuriated Erik, deep down. Charles, who had appeared so arrogant and self-assured, whose smirk always held the air of ‘I know I’m right, my friend, there’s no use arguing’. Who walked around the world a step above the rest because he knew everything that went on in their heads, and…

The emptiness in Erik’s head was stifling. Quiet, far too quiet. Every morning when Erik woke from a fitful sleep in Charles’s bed – which no longer smelled like him – he was enough in dream to momentarily expect to feel the warm curl of Charles’s mind lapping against his, to hear a silent _‘Good morning, love’_ or _‘Sorry, did my thoughts wake you again, darling’_ , and Erik would grumble back a “You’re too loud, Charles”.

But then, Erik would open his eyes, and instead of seeing a pair of blue ones gazing back at him he only saw an empty expanse of bedding and a pillow still fluffy and smooth from disuse.

It was well into spring now, and the garden was awash with colour, but Erik barely noticed it as he walked around aimlessly. Erik often did that, these days; when the memories sitting in Charles’s bedroom overwhelmed him, he would go outside to try and clear his head. He’d walk along the paved path, around the side of the mansion, and each time he would get closer to _that_ spot. The spot stained with a halo of red, red that he had overheard Sean whispering to Alex about, saying that “It’s all gone now, after we scrubbed it away, but I don’t know, man – I still can’t walk down that way without…”

Erik had turned the corner quickly, not wanting to hear the rest, because Charles had been washed away just like that, with bleach and rain and mud. 

As he walked through the garden, Erik flicked his wrist, Charles’s wristwatch floating out from his pocket. Erik held it in his palm, powers running over its grooves and indentations, over its arms that had stopped ticking the moment its owner stopped breathing. Erik could feel the stagnant metal, the scratches on the underside, the engraved ‘ _Happy birthday, son’_ sharp on his senses. He couldn’t feel how the glass watch face was cracked with his powers, and instead ran the pad of his thumb over it, memorising its feel.

Erik stopped walking when he reached the lawn, the metal gravestone warm under the sun. Erik’s heart twisted as he neared it like he did every day, and he stretched forward to gently wipe away some of the grime that had been blown across it overnight.

And, like always, Erik kneeled in front of it and pressed his forehead against its surface, murmuring –

_Why, Charles?_

***

It wasn’t completely true to say that Charles left _nothing_ behind, because he did. Memories, feelings, and a long list of readings from his last dance with Cerebro. They had only just discovered it, the thick paper studded with black ink sitting on the bench behind the large powered-down machine.

They probably would have found it sooner, if any of them had the heart to go in there, to a place that had Charles written all over it. Cerebro had become a relic over the past months, and like Charles’s watch, had become stagnant without its owner to keep it alive.

The last list of readings – latitudes and longitudes stamped in ink – had been folded into a binder, annotations in black pen scribbled along the margins. Annotations in Charles’s distinct hand, regal and smooth, swooping letters somehow conveying intelligence and innovation, but also understated elegance and a noble upbringing.

Alongside the locations of the young mutants Charles had been searching for were notes on their powers, or important facts of note. _Katherine Pryde – intangibility. Ororo Munroe – atmokinesis. Scott Summers – Alex’s brother! Similar powers, how marvellous. Anna Marie – power absorption? Jean Grey – telepath and telekinesis, very powerful but she’s terrified about what she can do ~~I understand~~. _

And that was it. No scribbled note or instructions, just a list of people, of _children_ , and yet it was a list that somehow brought a flicker of life back to the mansion. Because even if Charles hadn’t written down explicit instructions, they all knew what he wanted. What he had dreamed about.

A school, a safe haven for mutants. A place like Genosha, but for all the young mutants who didn’t quite know their place in the world. A school where they could learn to embrace their gifts, and to be around people just like them.

Charles left them this list, his final one, to find them. To build this school, one that he would never see come to fruition.

_Why, Charles? What would make you do this to yourself, when you had wanted to achieve so much?_

_Why?_

That question still haunted Erik in his waking days and in his dreams, but as he clutched the list of names, he felt that maybe, somewhere in there, there could be an answer.

He was right, and amongst those names was an answer.

But that doesn’t mean that it was a nice one.

***

“I know you,” the young red-haired girl said, large eyes staring unblinkingly at Erik and Raven as they stood in front of her. She looked at Raven first, tilting her head to the side. “Why are you not blue? When I saw his mind, you were blue. He liked you when you were blue, it made him feel… proud.”

Raven’s mouth dropped open, her pink skin flickering to blue for a brief moment in shock as the girl – _Jean_ , as Charles’s list had told them – stared at her unflinchingly.

“I… who?” Raven stammered out as her image rippled, before settling into her natural blue scales and red hair. Jean blinked slowly, head tilting to the other side as she stared into Raven’s yellow irises.

“The man that spoke to me in my mind a long time ago. He has some of the same powers as me, but he was much better at it. He told me that you,” Jean said, pointing to Raven in her blue form, before turning her gaze to Erik and continuing, “and _you_ would come find me. He said it may be someone else though, like the tall man that looks like a blue teddy bear, or the pretty lady with the wings. But he said it would probably be you two.”

“Charles,” Erik whispered, Jean nodding. Erik suddenly felt like there was a boulder in his throat, but he managed to speak around it. “You said he… spoke to you. When did he…”

“It was in winter,” the girl said, looking into the distance a little wistfully, small smile on her youthful face. “He was very nice. I was scared, and he told me that it would be alright. That he was scared too, and that it was okay to be scared. He told me that I could use my fear to learn how to control my powers better, so I don’t have to be scared of hurting anyone. I wanted to meet him, because he was really nice, and he understood, but he said that he had to go somewhere far away.”

Raven’s face fell and Erik clenched his jaw, Jean flinching as a hand flew to her temple.

“You’re… You’re angry, and sad, and… and… It… It hurts,” Jean stammered, one hand clutching at the fabric of her dress that rested over her heart, her eyes wide as they began to glaze over. Her pupils flickered wildly, mouth moving rapidly as she took a step back, shaking. “You’re too loud! I-It hurts, you hurt, I hurt, and… oh… _Oh_ … and _he_ hurts. He hurts a lot, so much, because he’s scared and alone and…”

Erik and Raven winced as the girl, with so little control of her powers, sent a wave of psionic energy at the two of them. The both of them fell to their knees with their hands over their ears, clamping over them like it would stop the ringing rattling through their brains.

“Stop it,” Erik gasped out in pain as the pressure in his head flared, and he could feel the young telepath’s mental fingers poking around his mind. Her touch was clumsy, uncontrolled, like she didn’t know what she was looking for as she rifled through the mess of memories and feelings, stirring them up and bringing them to the forefront of Erik and Raven’s minds.

Images of Charles flashed by, the girl somehow latching on to every memory involving him. She saw everything; the frost, the blood, the metal slab, the chess games, the laughter, the nights stargazing as they trekked across the country, the beach, the shared glances, the gentle brush of fingers.

Erik let out a pained noise as she dragged forth everything his mind had to offer about Charles, the pain anew, and Erik gathered all of his thoughts to push the girl from his head. Steel walls climbed up and up and up, reinforced with iron bolts and pointed barbs.

_‘Get out of my head.’_

“ _Oh_ ,” the girl wailed, slowly lowering herself onto the ground, arms around her torso as she hugged herself, eyes wide. “That’s why he hurt… That’s why his mind felt like _that_ … And he still hurts. Alone… he’s so alone…”

The young telepath’s eyes then rolled back, her tiny and undeveloped mind overwhelmed, and she soon slumped forward with her head lowered. Raven and Erik gasped as the pressure on their minds receded, the two of them looking at each other with heavy gazes.

_Why?_

***

It had been a month since Jean came to the school to live, and she had been skittish around Erik and Raven ever since. It wasn’t that Erik and Raven were avoiding her – if anything, it was the opposite. The girl knew something about Charles. He had clearly shown her something, or she could have plucked it from his mind as she had pulled their memories of him from theirs. And yet, whenever the girl saw them, her eyes would widen and she would scuttle off in the opposite direction.

“I get why the children run away from Erik, but Raven?” Alex said, raising a brow as the older mutants sat in the kitchen.

“It’s only Jean that runs away from Raven,” Angel pointed out, making the shapeshifter wince. “What the hell did you two do to her when you were recruiting?”

“ _We_ did nothing,” Erik said, narrowing his eyes as he vaguely gestured towards his head. “She did… things. She wasn’t like Charles – she clearly didn’t know what she was doing. But she said things about him. About Charles.”

“And we’ve been trying to talk to her about it ever since, but every time either of us get close to her she runs off!” Raven said, throwing her hands up as she munched on a strawberry. “She even… I think she even used her powers on me the other day. Cast an illusion so I didn’t see her, but it wasn’t perfect. Instead of erasing herself from my senses, she just made it fuzzy and it was unnatural. If it were Charles…”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Erik said, cutting off that train of thought with a gruff grunt. “She knows something about Charles, about why he…”

“Well of course she does, Sugar. Unlike you lot, she knows how to _listen_.”

Erik leapt up at the sound of that familiar voice, the kitchen drawers all rattling open as the knives flew out from their homes to hover in the air around the approaching figure that had appeared in the archway of the kitchen. Hank leapt up as well, snarling, while everyone else faced the newcomer with narrowed eyes, muscles taut and ready to fight.

“Oh, do calm yourselves,” Emma Frost drawled, waving her hands warily at the knives that inched closer to her tight white suit. “Contrary to what you’re all thinking – except you, Angel, dear – I’m not here to harm. And no, _Erik_ , I’m not here to ‘avenge’ Sebastian or all that other nonsense you’re thinking about. I’m here because I heard a whisper about your pet telepath being very much buried beneath the ground and was, well, curious. Because I hear things from up there sometimes, and even though we were certainly not friends, I can understand him. Quite. I didn’t think that he would… he was strong, stronger than me. But I suppose it was that soft heart of his… And it was all too much in the end, I suppose…”

“Frost…” Erik said warningly, knives jerking forward, Emma flickering into diamond for a brief moment before relaxing back to her normal guise.

“Sugar, I really do come in peace. This little lady can attest to that, can’t you, dear?”

Emma’s eyes turned away from Erik for a moment, looking behind him. Jean stood there wearing her nightgown, a teddy bear held tightly in her arms as she looked at Emma, tentative but not wary. There was something silent being said between them, that everyone was sure of.

“Jean?” Raven asked, the red head looking at her and nodding slowly.

“Mm. Ms Fr- _Emma_ ,” Jean said, looking back at Emma, who smiled a little. “Emma said that… That she just wants us to understand. We… We both want you to understand, because we understand.”

“Dear, the first thing you should learn is to not talk in riddles. People detest us and our powers already, they only get more annoyed if we try to be cryptic about it all,” Emma said, Jean’s cheeks colouring.

“Why would you want to help us?” Erik asked, Emma letting out a heavy sigh, reaching forward with her index finger to nudge at one of the hovering knives, giving Erik a flat look. The metallokinetic gritted his teeth, but let the knives fall onto the dining table.

“Oh, I’m not helping _you_. I’m helping him. Because, even if he wasn’t going to be angry about it, I will, because I’ve experienced it. Unlike him, I don’t care what _you_ think. I don’t care if I make _you_ uncomfortable. I had enough of that with Shaw, with that ridiculous helmet. Because if he just _trusted_ me I would have done anything for hi-” Emma cut herself off with a harsh click of her tongue.

“You think you are different – from Shaw, from the humans. But you’re not,” Emma said, after calming herself, Jean slowly walking towards her. When she neared, Jean carefully reached up to hold onto the hem of Emma’s top, the icy woman looking down and patting her head – a little awkwardly, the gesture clunky for someone unaccustomed to doling out affection. Still, Jean relaxed a bit, looking more at home than she had for the past month that she had been living at the mansion for.

“And who’s being cryptic now? Cut to the chase,” Erik snapped, Emma smiling emptily.

“Well, we’re telepaths, Sugar. It’s easier for us to _show_ you. We’ve felt how _he_ felt, and maybe if you do too, you’ll understand why he did it.”

Erik opened his mouth, and before he could say the words in his mind, Emma let out a biting laugh.

 _“Stay out of my head?”_ Emma echoed, drawing the words from Erik’s mind, Jean wincing. “You see, that line worked on your pet telepath, and maybe a little too well. But I am not so principled. Maybe that’s why I’m still here, and he’s up there.”

“Stop this nonse-”

“Jean, Sugar. Let me help you. This is how you _show_ them,” Emma said, gently touching the back of Jean’s head, the girl’s eyes closing as the teddy bear dropped from her hands, which rose in front of her.

And then, through Charles’s eyes, everyone saw _why_.

***

Charles stood in the middle of the packed room, the bow tie around his neck wound too tight and the starch in his shirt like a vice. He was short, short for the nine-year-old boy that he was, and he stood stiffly between his mother and father as they greeted their guests.

Charles had been nursing a headache all morning, and he was a little woozy from all of the painkillers his mother had plied him with, because no matter what he had to show up to the Xavier Foundation’s gala. It would be terribly rude if the Xaviers’ only son played hooky, when all of their guests would be bringing their own children. And, if Sharon was going to show everyone who held all the cards, Charles had to be on his best behaviour and show everyone exactly what a Xavier son was all about.

But the painkillers hadn’t helped with the buzzing in Charles’s head, which had only gotten louder and louder as more people piled into Westchester.

Charles let out a gasp as his mind twinged.

_‘… up straighter, stupid, quit slouching.’_

The words were in his mother’s voice, but she was talking to the councilwoman with her painted lips right now, wasn’t she? Just as Charles thought this, he felt his mother pinch at the flesh at his back.

_‘Goddammit, did I give him too much? I gave him less than the adult dose, but…’_

Charles swayed on his feet slightly, but not because of the drugs. His head felt like it was splitting, the buzzing turning into a muttered chorus of noise.

_‘… Charles looks so ill. I told Sharon that we should let him rest. I’ll finish greeting the guests, and before my address I’ll tuck Charles into bed...’_

Charles heard his father’s voice, leaning into its comforting timbre. Charles felt a spike of alarm, his father’s hand suddenly coming to rest at his back as Charles swayed.

_‘… was that…?’_

Charles bit back a pained moan as his head pulsed again.

_‘… have to talk to Brian Xavier…’_

_‘Funding…’_

_‘No one’s looking, maybe I can nick that statuette now…’_

_‘God, she looks fat in that dress.’  
‘She’s skinny like a Jew fresh out of…’  
‘Oh dear Lord, he actually dared to bring his mistress to this?’_

The voices picked up, more and more tumbling over one another, each wave barely breaking before the next washed over Charles who gasped for breath and drowned.

_‘Oh, Xavier’s boy is an adorable lad, isn’t he?  
Looks like his mother, not much like his father.  
So that’s Sharon’s kid? Hmph, doesn’t look like much. Won’t fill his father’s shoes, eh?  
Once his father dies, he’ll inherit everything. Lucky bastard.  
John is the same age as that Xavier kid. Maybe I should push them to become friends.  
Friends in high places will get my son anywhere.  
Fuck, Sharon still looks as fit as she did in school. Damn.  
Good God, Brian’s boy looks white as a sheet.  
Why is he looking at me like that? Weird kid.  
God, watch where you’re going, you little shit. I would wring your neck, but that would get me out of Brian’s good graces and I need his sponsorship. Once Brian is out of the picture, everything will be mine for the taking, and then Cain…  
Jesus, that Xavier kid looks like he’s about to spew.  
Crazy kid. Weird.  
Something’s wrong with him.  
Is he sick?  
Maybe he really is a freak.’_

Charles gasped, stepping out from his father’s concerned embrace and racing up the stairs, past the crowds and mental gazes and hurtling into his bedroom. He whimpered with his hands over his ears as he slowly sunk to the ground and crawled under his bed, breaths laboured.

_I’mnocrazyI’mnotcrazyI’mnotcrazy._

_Getoutgetoutgetout._

***

Charles looked up at his mother, who returned his gaze with a look of pure horror and terror and a plethora of other things.

_‘Oh God, he’s not listening to me right now, is he?’_

Charles kept his mouth shut, giving his mother a false smile, as if he didn’t hear her.

“Mother, can we eat at that restaurant with the dessert that they light on fire tonight?” Charles asked innocently, his mother’s painted mouth twisting up into a stiff grin.

“Of course, dear. I’ll get one of the staff to ring the restaurant.”

_‘Maybe he didn’t hear. Maybe he doesn’t know that…’_

“Father won’t be coming, will he?” Charles said, Sharon’s face faltering.

_‘Oh God, how do I tell him?’_

“Oh, it’s alright, Mother. I already know. And I know that you’re sad, and I’m sad too. Which is why we should eat at that restaurant, because it makes you happy,” Charles said quietly, shuffling forward and placing his hand over his mother’s own, which froze.

_‘Oh God, how could he know? He must be reading my mind now, he must. Oh God, don’t read my mind, don’t, don’t, don’t!’_

Sharon pulled her hand out from under her son’s smaller one like he burned her, getting up from her chair and picking up her glass of wine with her, smoothing her dress as if she could flatten her fraying nerves.

“How thoughtful of you, Charles. But maybe… maybe not tonight. I’m very… tired.”

 _‘You’re not,’_ Charles thought to himself as he looked at his mother, who looked everywhere but at him.

_You’re just scared of me._

***

“Charles, can you just, you know, stay out for once?” Raven huffed, rolling her eyes. Charles flinched, but the movement was so minute it was barely noticeable.

“Raven, it’s not that easy to just-” Turn it off.

“Or you’re just lazy,” Raven countered, rolling her yellow eyes. “Charles, I get that when we were kids for you to stay in my head all the time, but you can shield better now and I need my privacy! I’m 16, for Christ’s sake!”

“I’m trying, Raven, but I can’t just turn it off! It takes a lot of concentration to shut people out, and it’s really hard when there are lots of people and you think loudly and it feels better for me to just focus on one mind and you’re the only one I-”

“But you can’t just be in my head all the time, Charles! It’s my mind! My thoughts! Just because you can read them doesn’t mean that you can do it any time you want!”

“I know that, Raven, but I told you it’s hard to-”

“You promised me you wouldn’t read my mind without my permission!”

“And I kept that promise, but sometimes I slip!”

“Oh, right,” Raven said, scoffing a little. “You just ‘slipped’ and found out that Robbie kissed me the other day while I was pretending to be Cecilia and gave me shit for it? Suuuure.”

“That was… an accident. I wasn’t… I wasn’t searching for that, but you were thinking really loudly about how his lips felt and-”

“Oh, gross! Stay out of my head, Charles! I don’t want you to hear my thoughts!” Raven yelled, face scrunching up in disgust as Charles pulled his mind back, the swell of his powers naturally following his heightened agitation.

“Sorry! It’s… I… God, sorry, okay? I’ll stay out of your head, just… try to think less loudly. Please,” Charles sighed tiredly, Raven huffing.

“I don’t think loudly, you’re just too nosy for your own good, Charles.”

_But you do think loudly, because your mind is so bright and special and you’re my sister and I want to be with you forever because you’re the only one that doesn’t think that I’m a freak. Because we’re the same._

_We’re the same._

_Even if you don’t think it, sometimes._

***

Charles watched through Shaw’s eyes as Erik’s hands slowly brought the helmet down over his head. The sharp cut of its opening made Erik look like a completely different person, not like the man that murmured sweet German words to the skin at the base of Charles’s neck, or the man that had draped his coat over Charles’s shoulders when he had dozed off in the passenger seat of the car.

Charles didn’t know who this was, because this person didn’t have a mind. He was just a void, a void that Charles loved but one that didn’t love him back, because he couldn’t stand the thought of Charles being in his head.

But Charles _loved_ Erik’s mind. It made Charles feel safe, protected and warm, and… well, Charles didn’t have a word for it. At least, not in the English language. Maybe there was a word for it in other languages, but Charles had to settle for safe, protected and warm.

Charles didn’t want to do much more than to just curl up in a corner of that mind he so adored. He just wanted to lie there in front of the fireplace; he didn’t want to stoke the fire burning within it, or snuff it out. He just wanted to bask in its glow that thawed all of the chill from within Charles’s bones.

Still, Erik’s mind didn’t want him there. He had known it, in the subtle walls Erik had been building against him, in the way Erik’s mind would push back when he felt Charles taking up too much space. In the way the fireplace turned into an inferno and burned.

With the helmet, though, it just felt cold. Empty. And that was somehow worse, because Charles was sure that this was what Erik wanted. Because of the helmet, Charles knew that Erik didn’t want him, because to want Charles was to want his mind, because that was as much a part of him as his heart, his eyes, his mouth. It was written in his genes, and Charles knew how much Erik loved the powers of others; he was in awe over Raven’s abilities, proud of how Sean had learned to fly, impressed at the destructive power of Alex’s plasma blasts, and genuinely supportive of Hank’s new appearance.

And yet, Erik put on the helmet, because in the end, he didn’t accept Charles’s gift.

Charles thought that maybe, _maybe_ , Erik would be like his own father. That, like Brian, he’d accept all of him, because even if not out of love, it was out of the goodness of his heart. Because Charles knew there was good there, even as much as Erik tried to deny it. Charles had felt it, had believed in it.

He’d still believe in it. Maybe it’ll just take more time.

Just a bit more.

Charles wouldn’t push him so much, Charles could stay out of his mind if he could. He just had to try harder.

And –

 _Oh_ God. _The coin. Oh, no, Erik. Erik! No, no, oh,_ God _, please stop. Please,_ please _, please. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Oh God, too much, it’s too much! It hurts too much!_

_I just want it to end._

***

Charles placed down his cards, a smirk on his face as he chuckled, gathering the chocolates they were using as betting chips and popping one in his mouth.

“Four of a kind,” the telepath said smugly through a mouthful of sweetness, Raven groaning and throwing down her cards while Alex swore. Darwin just smiled, Angel rolled her eyes and Sean stared at his own cards, confused. Erik, on the other hand, just quirked a brow as he let his losing full house drop to the table by the paperclips that he used to hover them in front of his face.

“We should ban you from poker, Charles. Or just card games in general. You have an unfair advantage,” Erik teased, the chocolate on Charles’s tongue suddenly tasting bitter.

“Right?” Raven chimed, clapping her blue hands in agreement. “It’s been like this ever since we were kids! It’s unfair! He can just, you know, mind shazam us and win every time!” Raven gestured at her head and stuck her tongue out, Charles’s brow creasing.

“I’m not cheating. I’m not even trying to read your minds. I’m blocking everything out, I promise – it’s no fun if it’s that easy. I can’t help it if I get a general sense of disappointment or excitement coming through, but it’s not as if I read your mind to find out your cards. Erik has beaten me before,” Charles said, voice quiet, pushing the chocolates in front of him around with his fingers.

“Yeah, only because he’s the best at blocking you out,” Raven said, Erik snorting.

“And because he is expressionless normally, so his normal face is already a poker face,” Sean said, yelping as a paper clip collided with the centre of his forehead, likely leaving a little welt.

“I’m really not trying to read your minds,” Charles pushed again, but by that point Raven had shuffled the cards, dealing out the next hand. Charles looked at his cards – a useless lot – and felt Erik looking at him from the side.

“Don’t peek, Charles,” Erik said, Charles rolling his eyes and pushing down the sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I told you, I’m _not_. And, anyway, I’m done for tonight. I’m quite tired, so I’m going to take a bath first.”

Throwing his cards down, Charles got up from his seat, giving everyone a polite ‘good night’ smile before leaving the room.

Before he could leave, though, he heard Raven’s triumphant “Ah ha!” as she flipped over his discarded cards.

_‘See? He had a dud hand – he probably left because he saw I had a royal straight flush!’_

***

Charles was asleep, he knew it, but he also knew that this dream wasn’t the same as usual. Like thoughts, dreams had their own personal signature, and this one didn’t feel like one of his own.

Someone spoke, wearing a dark suit adorned with metallic pins. They weren’t speaking English – German? Polish? Something of the sort.

Ah, Erik’s dream, then.

Charles, in sleep, took a little longer to gather his thoughts, and was about to eject himself out of Erik’s mind when he saw him. He was younger than the Erik Charles knew, but could recognise him from the unchanging severe brow and auburn hair, and his memory of the serene vision he had unearthed for Erik that day they had moved the satellite dish.

Young Erik, with the mind of Charles’s Erik, looked frantic as he was ushered into a room where Shaw was sitting, looking similar but different to the man on the Cuban beach. An image of how Erik viewed him as a child. This is an old dream, then. Or nightmare, Charles deduced, since he could feel the beginnings of panic settling into Erik’s subconscious.

Charles’s heart ached as he saw Young Erik bite his lip in fear when Shaw ordered him to move the coin. Charles stood there behind him, his presence not yet known, and watched as Erik’s mother trembled, gun pressed to her temple.

 _‘No, no, not again, not again. I’ve killed you, you’re gone, but why are you still-’_ Erik’s mind whirled as he raised both hands, child-sized and shaking. In his dream, his powers were cut off, and Charles could feel his fear spiralling out of control.

Charles had told Erik that Shaw’s death would not bring him peace, and it hadn’t. It had made him feel more secure, of course, knowing that a madman like Shaw was no longer in the world, but he was not at peace. This nightmare only proved it.

 _‘But, maybe I can help bring you peace, my friend,’_ Charles thought to himself, stepping forward in Erik’s dream space. Charles moved to stand beside Erik, who finally noticed his presence, eyes growing wide.

“Rage and serenity, my friend,” Charles said softly, gently touching Erik’s cheek, and then his temple. “ _Remember_.”

Charles wrapped his mind around Erik’s, soothing out the fear and the panic, tweaking and repaving the path the nightmare usually followed. Erik’s small hands flexed, and unlike every other time he had experienced this dream, the coin moved.

But Charles only influenced that part, and didn’t stop Erik from moving the coin through Shaw’s head, making Charles scream.

At that point, Erik and Charles both woke with a start, the German pushing himself away from Charles who had been pressed against his side.

“Were you in my head, Charles? Did you see?” Erik said, voice strained, eyes narrowed.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Stay out, Charles. I don’t want you in there, to see that. I… Just… Stay out. Please,” Erik said, voice drained. Charles nodded, another apology on the tip of his tongue like they always were when it came to this.

 _‘I just wanted to help. I’m sorry,’_ Charles said to no one but himself, and when Erik opened his arms to let Charles nestle himself there again, Charles tried not to think about it for much longer.

But if there was one mind Charles couldn’t control, it was his own.

***

_‘I’m tired.’_

That was something Charles thought more and more often lately. Not tired like the way Sean is after watching too much television, or Alex from overexerting himself in the underground bunker. No, Charles very soul was tired; he had nothing left, really. All of the exuberance he had on the outside was but a façade now, a shadow and caricature of what he used to be. Of what everyone thought he was.

But he was tired. It wasn’t one big event that had wiped out his fire and his light. It was just a series of little things, of small comments, of mental walls and nudges away. It was in the wary gazes of the people around him, the frequent and unbidden _‘oh, crap, is he listening right now?’_ that people couldn’t hold back even if they tried.

It was the way people could never really trust Charles, because whatever he said, it was probably said because he knew that’s what they wanted to hear, right? Because they wanted to hear that he didn’t listen to their thoughts, and for the most part Charles hadn’t. But like everyone, he slipped, and would catch a thought as if they had said it out loud, and because to him it was like they had spoken it, he would respond and the immediate backlash of ‘I thought you said you’d stay out of my head, Charles,’ would snap him back into focus.

Charles had been tired for a while now, and he wasn’t ready just yet, but he was preparing. He was beginning to say goodbye, in ways that wouldn’t let people catch on to him.

But, how could they? They weren’t telepaths.

Charles had spent time with every one of his family – because they were family to him, now – before that winter’s night. He helped them coax out more of their gifts, and praised and encouraged them to continue on their journeys. They had smiled at him, thanked him for his advice, and gone on their way, while Charles too slowly trudged on towards his final destination.

Saying goodbye to Raven had been hard. Charles had almost cried, and Raven had given him a questioning look, but Charles just shook his head, kissing his sister’s hand.

“No, it’s nothing. It’s just… you’ve grown up so well, and so beautiful. I don’t think I say it enough. But I’m proud of you, always. Don’t forget that,” Charles said, Raven rolling her eyes, though her mouth broke into a smile as Charles hugged her tightly.

And Erik.

God, _Erik_.

Charles had, at one point, envisioned a future with Erik. He imagined how they’d be years into the future, grey, wrinkled and old. Charles imagined Erik losing his hair, but somehow finding that imagined version of the German attractive nonetheless, and snorted at the idea of it being the other way around – Charles was fond of his hair, after all.

Charles imagined them still living in Westchester, but with a large rabble of children running about their knees, powers dancing from their fingertips. He pictured a middle-aged Erik resting his head across Charles’s lap as they read together, or the two jetting off to Paris and Germany, to visit where Erik had grown up.

Charles imagined years of Erik making him cups of tea, of kissing Erik, holding Erik, loving Erik. The fantasies and wishes came so easily, one after the other, a series of ‘what could be’ and ‘if only’.

Charles imagined waking up next to Erik every day for the rest of his life, and, he supposed, he had gotten that until the very end at least.

Charles touched his lips softly, smiling at the memory of how Erik’s mouth felt against his for the very last time, and carried that feeling with him as he climbed onto the ledge of the highest balcony. The wind rippled through Charles’s pyjamas and made him teeter on the stone edge, hands outstretched for balance.

The wind threaded through his spread fingers, coaxing, holding his hand.

One last time, Charles closed his eyes and cast his power out. He touched on the sleeping minds of Hank, Sean, Angel, Darwin, Alex, Raven and Erik, pressing a disguised ‘thank you, and good bye’ against each and every one of them, before letting himself tip forwards, weightless.

And Hank had been right – he hadn’t felt a thing.

***

Emma took her hand off the back of Jean’s head, and instead hefted the girl up as she leaned into Emma’s side with exhaustion after projecting what she had seen in the brief moment she had connected with Charles’s mind. Her youthful face was slick with tears, as were those of all of the others in the room – even Emma’s eyes were glassy as she felt everything Charles had felt, like she had lived through those moments herself.

“Oh, _oh_ , Charles,” Raven sobbed, hand flying over her mouth as she cried, legs shaking. “I didn’t… I didn’t know…”

Erik stood eerily still, mouth slightly parted, though not a single breath passed between his lips. A single tear teetered over the edge of his burning eyes, sliding down a pale cheek as the echoes of Charles’s silent agony rippled through him.

Had he done that?

To Charles?

He had made Charles feel like that?

Charles, who had done nothing less than make him feel loved, cherished, safe – _Gemütlichkeit._ Charles, who had given him a home, a purpose, a reason to live that was more than just revenge. Charles, who had never told him how it all made him feel, how _Erik_ made him feel.

But why would he? Erik had never wanted to _listen_. He had never _asked_.

He had always assumed Charles just _knew_ , that if Charles wanted Erik to ask, or to know something, he would just _make_ him. But that wasn’t Charles, was it? Out of all the people in the world, the gift of telepathy had been given to _Charles_. Charles who, like no one else, wouldn’t use his powers for his own selfish gain – to hurt others, to control them. Charles, whose powers taught him the value of free thought, of organic feelings, of everything that was real, had been the one given that gift.

Charles had no ulterior motives, nothing more than the simple, basic feeling of wanting to be close to people he cared about, in the way that he knew best. While others held the people they loved close in their arms, Charles embraced them with his mind. That was what _Gemütlichkeit_ was for him. It’s just that no one could understand it.

No one took the time to understand him, because they just pushed him away.

 _Erik_ pushed him away.

Erik, who should have been the person to hold him close, to tell him “You’re not alone, Charles, you’re not alone”. But instead of that, every time Erik told Charles to stay out of his head he had been alienating him, pushing him to isolation, making him feel unwanted, like he had felt all his life.

And it had driven Charles to… to…

_Charles, Charles, Liebling. Gott. What have I done?_

Erik’s heart twisted, and the pain was as physical as it was emotional, the man crumpling to the floor.

“I never told him,” Erik said, voice raw. “I never… I assumed he knew, so I never said it. Any of it. I never told him that I…”

_That I love him. That he’s everything. That I only started living when I met him. That he was home. That he was_ _Gemütlichkeit itself._

“So, now you see,” Emma said, tugging Jean towards her, the young girl hugging Emma around the waist. “So, before you accuse me – _us_ ,” Emma said, looking down at Jean, “of plundering your mind for no other reason than to pluck out your inane thoughts for the fun of it, just remember that this is how we are. To us, thoughts are like air, the stretch of our minds like lungs expanding. We don’t choose to read your thoughts – we choose _not_ to. And it’s hard to block thoughts out. That’s what you don’t understand. For that Professor of yours to block you out most of the time takes a great deal of concentration, concentration that I, and young Jean here, don’t have.”

A note of anguish clawed its way out of Erik’s throat and he struggled to breathe.

_Charles, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, forgive me. Please, come back. I need to tell you, all the things I never said. The things I should have said, every day. You have to hear them, you can hear them in my mind, whenever you want. Whenever you need it._

_Please._

“You said you heard him, heard C-Charles,” Raven said through a hiccup. “Let us talk to him. We have to tell him… Everything. That we’re sorry, for everything.”

Erik pulled his eyes from the ground, looking at Emma, who just shook her head, wry smile gracing her features.

“Trust me, if I could, I would – as much as I loathe to admit it, I’m not powerful enough to reach the astral plane yet, not like your telepath. And who knows where he is now, floating around up there in the astral plane, without a care in the world. Even if I could, would you really want me to? To take him away from that place, where he wants to be, just because _you_ want it?”

Emma’s words weighed on everyone, and after a long stretch of silence, Emma sighed.

“I didn’t only come here to make you feel guilty, although I can’t say I regret it. Even if I don’t agree with everything he stood for, and even if he was a naïve fool with a bleeding heart, he was no coward. And he was a telepath, and what he wanted – one of his final wishes – was to make a place where telepaths are accepted. Complete and fully. And I can’t say I disagree with that wish,” Emma said, Erik blinking.

“What do you mean?”

“That wasn’t really a riddle, Sugar,” Emma said, patting Jean on the shoulder. “I’m saying that I’ll help you build that school you’ve started. You’re going to need me, if you’re going to find any one. Now, he said that the machine, what was it called again – Spanish for brain, he said – would need to be recalibrated, but I should be able to operate it with a little practice.”

“And,” Emma continued, smirking. “You’re all doing a terrible job at making Jean here feel at home. If you’re going to start making telepaths feel like they’re accepted as much as your blue skin and wings are, you’re going to need me.”

_‘But you’re not Charles-’_

“I know, Sugar,” Emma said, voice softening just a touch. “Trust me, _I know_. But, in the fleeting moment he pressed into my mind, he did tell me to say one thing to you.”

Erik’s heart hammered as Emma walked closer after making sure Jean wasn’t going to collapse in a heap, raising her hands questioningly. When Erik let her place her fingers on either side of his head, Erik shuddered as he felt her telepathic touch filter in. Her touch was cold, so different from the all-enveloping warmth of Charles’s mind.

But then, as Emma pushed the feeling and image of Charles into Erik’s mind – _Charles_ , smiling that damned smile which lit up rooms and minds and hearts, fingers carding through his hair – he couldn’t help but loose a sob.

_Alles ist gut, Erik._

_Alles ist gut._

But it wasn’t.

Not in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I may write a third part where I fix things, but sometimes it's best to leave things in the dumps~  
> But anywho, thanks for reading! x


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